New HDD not recognised - help!

Hi All,

I’ve just bought a new 3TB WD elements drive and copied everything from my full 1TB elements drive across to it.  Plugged it into the WDTV Live SMP and nothing.

On the screen it says connecting to USB for a few seconds but when I go into the video section it just says the last content source has been removed, please select a new content source.  When I try the options are Local Storage, Media Server, Network Share, Online Services.  None of these contain the drive I’ve just set up.

I must be doing something wrong, but can anyone tell me what it is?

Thanks,

Dom

I am having the same issue however the HDD was working for the last 2 weeks and now it doesnt seem to work. I have a 2nd HDD and it works fine through the WDlive and the new HDD that was working still works fine on my laptop? I am not a tech expert and when I go through most of he forum looking for answers I dont really understand the lingo that much. 

When I plug the new one in it just says connected to USB storage.  When I plug the old one in it says that and then says compiling media library.  I’ve checked and the drive is definately compatible.

I’m getting really fed up with this now!  I’ve contacted WD tech support, but no response.

I did acutally get it working at one point.  I formatted the drive and the wdtv box was recognised. I ejected it (properly) plugged it back into my laptop to copy over the content which I did overnight. Tried it again and nothing!  Says connecting to USB storage, but then nothing.

Dom

Very strange indeed, I have two 3TB drives connected to the SMP via a USB powered hub and connected to the FRONT port of the SMP. I had a lot of problems with the rear port, sometimes would not recognize the drive or would have to reset the unit to get it to work or other reasons. Not sure if it’s your WD drive, can’t see that it matters. I have two 3TB drives, one is a Seagate and the other is a Toshiba and I didn’t have to format them, I used them right out of the box. Copied all the movies, tv shows, music and pictures onto them and let it compile and build the content library and all is working fine. I must state that I have both drives conneted to a USB powered hub so that it doesn’t pull power from the SMP and using the front port of the SMP. The only complaint I have is the Toshiba drive has a time out spindown if not being used and that sometimes caused the drive to not spin back up when I turn on the SMP, no biggie, I just unplug the power to the Toshiba drive and plug it back in and let it re-compile then I good to go.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

I don’t think the power can be the issue as the WD usb drive plugs into the wall, so doesn’t draw any power from the SMP.

Dom

drpips wrote:

I’m getting really fed up with this now!  I’ve contacted WD tech support, but no response.

 

I did acutally get it working at one point.  I formatted the drive and the wdtv box was recognised. I ejected it (properly) plugged it back into my laptop to copy over the content which I did overnight. Tried it again and nothing!  Says connecting to USB storage, but then nothing.

 

Dom

What format is the drive in? 

Did you safely remove the drive from your laptop? 

What laptop do you have?

Also, are you changing wall sockets when you are moving the drive back to the SMP.

In order

NTFS

Yes

Dell Inspiron

No, leaving it plugged in and moving laptop to it.

Thanks,

Dom

Are you using the front port or back port for the usb?  Also, if you’re using the back usb port, can you try the front port?

Next, if it doesn’t work on either, can you try a smaller drive on both ports and see if they work? 

What firmware are you using?

I’ve tried both ports but no success.  My 1TB drive was fine in both.  I was using the most up to date firmware, but I’ve since reset to factory settings.

Strange that it worked yesterday when I formatted the drive, but not now.  I’m thinking it may just be a temporamental drive that needs replacing.

Dom

To be honest, I’m not sure.  If it’s working on your laptop, it should be working on the media player. 

What operating system are you using?  If it’s Windows 7, make sure your data is backed up and if you want you can try deleting the partition, and then repartition and reformat it.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.

It’s windows 8

DanBrown >>>    The only complaint I have is the Toshiba drive has a time out spindown if not being used and that sometimes caused the drive to not spin back up when I turn on the SMP, no biggie

Both drives connected to my WD unit have sleep modes, too, and never have this problem – Why?  Likely because the WD is on 2/47/365.   Why not, it gets accessed a few times a day; and anyway who wants to wait for the player to boot up every time it’s used; I sure don’t.  Many boxes do not even have a power switch anymore since they use little power when idling, e.g. Rokus do not have a power switch  – never have since the first model.

If I replaced the drive with a wd mybook live should that work?  Then I could use the airplay features of a AV amp I’m thinking of getting.

Dom

drpips wrote:

I’ve tried both ports but no success.  My 1TB drive was fine in both.  I was using the most up to date firmware, but I’ve since reset to factory settings.

 

Strange that it worked yesterday when I formatted the drive, but not now.  I’m thinking it may just be a temporamental drive that needs replacing.

 

Dom

How did you reformat the drive?  Did you format it in MBR or GPT?  I mean Win8 should have automatically reformatted in GPT, but if you changed it, then that could cause issues.